


A Very Simple Assignment

by celli



Category: Highlander
Genre: Community: gen_ficathon, Gen, Gen Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-09
Updated: 2009-11-09
Packaged: 2017-10-18 03:12:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/184365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celli/pseuds/celli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It's a protection detail. Actually, I take that back." Amanda waved a hand in the air. "It's a well-paid babysitting job."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Very Simple Assignment

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amaresu](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amaresu/gifts).



> Written for [](http://amaresu.livejournal.com/profile)[**amaresu**](http://amaresu.livejournal.com/) for the [](http://gen-ficathon.livejournal.com/profile)[**gen_ficathon**](http://gen-ficathon.livejournal.com/). Her prompt was "Protection detail gone hilariously wrong."

"No, Amanda," said Methos as he opened the door.

She pouted up at him. "How did you know it was me?"

"It's the twenty-first century, darling. I have a security system." Methos stepped back to let Amanda into the apartment, ignoring the small, sensible voice in his head suggesting he just close the door on her and ignore the resultant screaming. Amanda was a friend, after all.

Besides, if he'd listened to sense, Woodstock would have been much, much less fun. He shut the door and turned, trying to keep the fond smile off his face.

Amanda was looking around his apartment, which wouldn't take long; his tastes still ran to the simple and book-filled. She looked fantastic, naturally. Her hair was longer than he'd seen it in a while, pulled up in a white-blonde twist. Her clothes were business chic, as well--a tailored skirt suit and power heels. Even Methos could appreciate a good power heel. "Nice look," he said.

Her gaze settled back on him, and she shook her head. "While you still haven't tired of jeans and a sweater, in all these years."

"Hey! Sometimes I wear khakis."

Amanda looked him up and down, and then smiled brilliantly. "You'll be _perfect_."

The small, sensible voice sighed. It had told him so.

***

"It's a very simple assignment," Amanda said. They were crossing the lobby of one of the largest hotels in the city, full of ornate furnishings and not one but three fountains.

Methos had already picked out four security guards between the door and the elevator. "Simple. Sure."

"It's a protection detail. Actually, I take that back." Amanda waved a hand in the air. "It's a well-paid babysitting job. There's a young lady up there who wants to get some air and see the city a bit while her father's in town, and classic bodyguards would make her feel hemmed in. She needs a couple of people who blend in a little. Casual."

Methos looked over at Amanda's designer jeans and cashmere sweater and wisely said nothing.

***

Raven Lockhart was, perhaps unfortunately, blonde. She was also bespectacled, dressed in a hoodie big enough for her and two good friends, and the most deferential, respectful teenager Methos could remember encountering.

Then again, he thought as her father swept out of the hotel room in a blast of color, sound, and feathers, every child deserves a good rebellion.

"How did you get involved in this?" he murmured to Amanda as Raven pulled on a pair of tennis shoes.

"Don't ask," she said, which meant MacLeod, so Methos didn't.

"I'm ready," Raven said, leading the way to the door. "Can we go to a bookstore first?"

"See?" Amanda shot a smug look at Methos. "Simple."

***

"Simple. Oh, couldn't be simpler!" Methos shouted across a bookstore forty-five minutes later.

"You can hardly blame me for this!" Amanda pushed Raven farther back into the shelves between Literary Criticism and Poetry as another bullet plowed by them. A volume of Edna St. Vincent Millay's sonnets tumbled off the shelf, its pages fluttering as it barely missed her head.

Methos edged his head out, waited until one of the gunmen was looking the other way, and nailed him with a well-thrown hardcover copy of the _Lord of the Rings_ trilogy. The gun flew one way and the man the other, groaning as he knocked his head solidly into a shelf. He dropped to the floor and lay there, motionless.

Someone else spotted him and took a shot; Methos ducked. "'One bookstore is the same as any other,'" he quoted back at her. "Except for the bookstores hosting signings with authors who put a bloody mob boss in prison! Perhaps those stores are slightly different, wouldn't you say?"

"Oh, stop fussing and do something!"

Methos spluttered. Amanda ignored him. Another gunman rushed her; she used the shelves to brace herself and swung forward, kicking him in the throat and gun hand nearly simultaneously. The gun spun up in the air; she reached out and snatched it.

Someone on the other side of his shelf shouted; Methos cleared the shelf of books in one sweep, then grabbed the man's collar and yanked. This one smacked into the wood even harder than the first. Methos dropped to a crouch, sidled around the shelf, and snagged the gun.

He couldn't see how many were left, but Amanda had a better point of view. " _Combien_?" he called.

Amanda held up three fingers and pointed--one to his left, two to his right. Methos gestured towards the ceiling, and she nodded.

He gave her a few seconds to scale the shelf at her side, then they swung out simultaneously. His target dropped without even seeing him, and a bullet blew by his head as Amanda's second shot hit home.

"Got him!" Amanda said.

"Oh my _God_ ," Raven said, peeking out from the shelves.

"For shame." Methos took down a copy of _American Gods_ with a perfect hole drilled through the "G" in Gaiman. "I love this book."

***

Dealing with the police was surprisingly uncomplicated, thanks to the appearance of Raven's father and his entourage, as well as several people in ill-fitting dark suits and earpieces. Amanda and Methos smiled vaguely, prevaricated a bit, and finally snuck out the back door as the paparazzi started to crowd the front.

"There, now," Amanda said, tucking her hand into the crook of his elbow. "That was fun, now, wasn't it?"

Was there anything to do but laugh?

***

Two weeks later, as Methos paged through a well-worn copy of _Anansi Boys_ , there was a (non-Immortal) knock at his door. A quick check of the monitor showed a delivery uniform, but Methos opened the door cautiously anyway.

"Overnight letter for Adam Branford?"

Methos looked at the return address and braced himself.

Inside, surprisingly, was a cashier's check in an amount that made Methos raise an eyebrow, a thank-you note from Raven Lockhart, and a packet full of information on the stops on Mr. Lockhart's European tour, with a matching list of bookstores.

Methos whipped his phone open faster than he'd ever drawn a sword and dialed.

"No, Amanda..."


End file.
